Phone Home

One of the “tools” of 12-step groups is a list of phone numbers of other members you can call if you’re feeling rough. I remember at my first GA meeting being asked for my phone number and thinking, “That’s not very anonymous,” but I gave it anyway and someone called me to check in.

I didn’t call them back. I don’t like talking on the phone. But I did go to another meeting. And another. Until I relapsed and stopped going. And then started up again and jumped in feet first by getting a sponsor to avoid another relapse. (Spoiler alert: It didn’t 100% work, which is to say that I failed to do what I needed to do to make it work.)

One of the hardest things about having a sponsor is that I must call her every day, or damn near. Even if it’s just to say nothing at all, I have to check in. I hate it.

And, yet, I’m also a little annoyed that my name hasn’t made the new version of my home group’s phone list. Granted, I did just have a relapse 3 days ago but, prior to 3 days ago, I had racked up more than two months clean. Surely that should count me for inclusion on their phone list … or maybe not. I don’t always know how these GA things work.

That’s part of the problem. I like to know the process, how decisions get made, and no one can seem to give me the Gamblers Anonymous plan. Near as I can tell, you go to as many meetings as you can possibly stuff in your schedule where you bear bits of your darkest shame to other people in 3- to 5-minute increments. When you’re not in a meeting, you are urged frequently call people that you may or may not have even met before. Every once in a while, there’s a potluck supper where milestones are celebrated so that people can mingle awkwardly and hug strangers.

I’m being a bit facetious but not much. That’s really, in simple terms, how it works. And, for the record, I like bearing my shame to strangers and then hugging them, though I don’t much care for the phone talking.

But, while I don’t like talking to people on the phone, I’d still like to be considered a resource for other people who don’t like talking on the phone.

I was at a meeting tonight, a very good one. “Good” is subjective, as they are all beneficial in their way, but I use “good” to mean that no one put me to sleep with their sharing or tore me a new one for being such a flawed person (which doesn’t and shouldn’t happen at meetings, by the way, but I am forever grateful any time I can escape someone reminding just how defective I am). So, a good a meeting.

I should also note I’m several states away from home, and it’s a very comforting feeling to walk into a meeting hundreds of miles from where I live and be welcomed by strangers, especially by strangers who know what a fuck up I am and that, while they don’t know my particular story, there’s a fairly good chance I may have stolen my mother’s antique wedding ring and pawned it for another round of black jack, embezzled from my company to pay my bookie, harvested my eggs to fund a trip to Vegas, evaded my taxes for 17 years or any of the other anti-social things that compulsive gamblers frequently do.

And, as I was leaving this good meeting, I was handed the phone list for this particular group of strangers. In that weird brain mis-fire that frequently happens when I am in a social situation and trying to please the crowd but also fixating on one of my special snowflake wounds, such as being excluded from my own group’s phone list, I said, “Oh, wow, I made the list!”

And the nice gentlemen who gave me the phone list had a puzzled look and finally said, “Well, no, you’re not on our list. We just met you. But … you can call us anytime.”

And I smiled and, oh, yes, yes’d. “Of course. What I’d meant was … um, I’m so glad I could make it to the meeting to get the list,” instead of telling him what I really had thought, which was, “You guys just met me and I’m already on your list!? I’ve known my group for months and I can’t even seem to make the cut.”

But that would have even been more awkward than I’d already made it, so I just said thank you and good night.

While I will pray that I can let this inconsequential incident go, I’ll be honest and tell you that I’ll probably replay it another 15 to 17 times for my own degradation. And that’s not including that 9 or 10 times that I’ll re-read this account of it. Because grinding the embarrassment good and deep into my psyche has served me well so far.